


the strong and silent type

by casualbird



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Target Practice, Teenagers, berthold hawkeye burn in hell brigade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 18:45:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17493263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casualbird/pseuds/casualbird
Summary: "It had taken him weeks just to learn her name, and even when she’d told him, she didn’t seem very happy about it."roy can't seem to get through to master hawkeye's silent, sullen daughter.





	the strong and silent type

Every time Roy saw the girl, she was quiet. It had taken him weeks just to learn her name, and even when she’d told him, she didn’t seem very happy about it. Riza was always quiet--Roy would see her around the house when he’d come for his alchemy lessons, and she’d never give him the time of day. She was always doing chores, always ironing, mending, making dinner. Master Hawkeye had allowed him to eat with them once, and the soup was like dishwater. She was quiet as they ate, but Roy got the message in her sullen stare: _don’t say a word about the food._ So he didn’t, and as he left that night, Riza flashed him a brusque little smile.

He wondered for a long time if that meant that they were friends.

In the barren field down the road from Master Hawkeye’s house, Roy practiced his aim. His hands bled sweat in his new gloves, and the summer sun gave off a hellish glare, but he wouldn’t stop. Master Hawkeye had told him not to rest until he’d put a scorch mark right in the center of the target, the _or else_ hanging from the end of his bitten-off words.

Snap. Left of center. Snap. To the right. Snap. In the dirt. Roy mopped his brow with his sleeve, let his hands fall to his sides.

He was shaky, unskilled. The gunshots didn’t make it easier to concentrate.

Riza stood steady on her mark, and as Roy watched her blast three more rusty cans off a hay bale, he barely saw her move. She would lift her arms, adjust her aim in minute increments. The little snub-nose pistol would kick, and she would absorb it like it was nothing. He barely even saw her breathe.

It was strange to see her like that, focused, somehow calm despite the crack of the pistol, the firestorm that had been raging not twenty yards away. He rarely saw her for anything longer than a passing glance, but at home she was always tense and limp at once. Always grinding her teeth, grinding through an endless list of drudgery. It was hard to imagine that this was the same girl--here she was so collected, so much in control. But she had the same silence to prove it, the same ratty, ill-fitting clothes. Her eyes, though narrowed in their focus, were still smudged with that same sleepless purple-grey.

Another minute spent watching her aim, the fixed fluidity of her stance. Roy started when she finally pulled the trigger, catching another empty can.

“You, ah, you shoot very well!” Roy hollered, before he really knew what had come over him. “I’m no expert, but you’ve got good form!”

Riza didn’t look up, intent on lining up her next shot. Roy shuffled his feet, chewed his cheek. _Good form._ Watch her take that the wrong way. Or the right way, but definitely the wrong way to put it.

If the last gunshot had startled Roy, he nearly vacated his skin entirely when he looked up to see Riza staring at him, expression unchanged.

“Don’t,” she said, and pulled the trigger. Another can down.

He guessed they weren’t friends after all.

A century passed in a decade. Wordlessly, the Lieutenant extended her hand, helped Roy up from the alley's cobblestones. The smile she offered him was tight, but not without warmth. It lingered.

He wondered when she’d changed her mind.

**Author's Note:**

> don't worry roy, it's not that riza doesn't like you! she's just got her own shit to deal with.  
> alright so she doesn't like you. give it a few years.
> 
> my first fic in a long time! written haphazardly to feel like i was finishing something in the midst of a long, long wip.
> 
> i hope you enjoyed! if you did, why not chill out with me on [dreamwidth?](https://casualbird.dreamwidth.org)


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